————————————————————————-

all their little trophies

we used to have cats

when we used to live

out on the farm

they all spoke spanish

i believe one was a buddhist

he would come up to

the front porch and we’d

have long conversations

while i was smoking

my cigarettes

they would bring all

their little trophies

up to that porch

mouse, squirrel, rabbit,

even a fucking snake

all for that shake of the

bag to get some treats

it was like i was a dealer

some rival gang of coyotes

would sneak in and take a

few of them from time to time

i never saw the buddhist one die

i believe he transcended all space and time

i never did say what was in those cigarettes

—————————————————————-

the day of the dead

doing some living

on the day of the

dead

warming temperatures

fresh dead bodies

exposed on the

mountains

if life is a circle

are we just the

jerk

life meanders on

as time starts to

stand still

broken and lost

the endless desires
of a generation that
never got the chance
to make those desires
come true

—————————————————–

games on the radio

some soft music

as we all wait

to die

listening to an

old guy talk

about listening

to baseball games

on the radio back

in the fifties

he pauses

thinks of something

and then starts

about politics

the war has taken

something out of

us all

there is no rush

we’re all going to

be in the ground

soon enough

——————————————————————

election day

i marvel at people who

are proud to be stupid

who picked themselves

up by those proverbial

bootstraps yet still don’t

understand how the game

is played

and here come the outsiders

the grifters that know there

is always some dumb fuck

to make tons of money off of

i sit back and watch

and just laugh

my father was one of those

dumb asses

he always thought he was

smarter than anyone else

in the room

i stole from him much

of my life

money, baseball cards,

whatever i knew that dumb

fuck wouldn’t notice was gone

when i heard the stories that

his second wife drained the

pension and let him die

penniless in the VA

i just shook my head and knew

he never learned his lesson

apparently, no one ever does

———————————————-

haven’t found a sheep yet

thumbing

through the

pages of a

magazine

hoping to

find a

beautiful

face to

lose my

imagination

ini don’t
think this
old farm
magazine
is going
to do the
trick

J.J. Campbell (1976 – ?) is trapped in suburbia, plotting his escape. He’s been published in many places over the years, most recently at Horror Sleaze Trash, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Mad Swirl, The Rye Whiskey Review and The Beatnik Cowboy. You can find him most days on his mildly entertaining blog, evil delights. (https://evildelights.blogspot.com)